Again, September looking like cruel month for Bolts

KANSAS CITY, Mo,  Wasn’t this the site of Ryan Leaf’s personal demolition, where he blew up, blew a career and lost it all, here in the September rain? Sure it was. Deja viewed.

Have the Chargers forgotten their history, only to be doomed to relive it? I don’t know what it is about this football team and bad starts, but the market’s there and they have it cornered. It’s stupid now.

You know the dream. Just about everyone who’s ever slept has had it. You’re being chased and you try to run, but your legs can’t move. The Chargers live out that dream continuously -- in September.

Other than January, when the customary gag reflex sets in, it’s their cruelest month.

Monday night (which happened to be Sept. 13), before the downpour and wind came to the Chiefs’ remodeled Arrowhead Stadium near the end of the first quarter, the Chargers were moseying along, holding a 7-0 lead on a Chiefs team people in Mozambique know isn’t very good.

And then, suddenly, Ryan Leaf flashed before their eyes. I don’t know how hard they even tried to shake themselves awake. But there probably was a scream thrown in there somewhere, and it probably was courtesy of head coach Norv Turner and General Manager A.J. Smith. In stereo.

Arrowhead, which doesn’t have a roof, began to bleed Chiefs red. The Chargers tried to move their legs and failed. Worse yet, they often tried to tackle and failed. They tried to pass and failed. They tried to run and failed. They failed at the game of football for about 16 first-half minutes.

And, by the time they semi-recovered, it was too late for their too-little effort. That they fell 21-14 isn’t really the story, but how they fell, to a team with a nonexistent passing game (62 net yards) that never scores more than a touchdown if the Chargers’ special teams didn’t collapse like a soufflé shot full of holes.

The Chargers’ first-half effort -- not just their performance, but their effort -- was well beyond pitiful. Knowing this team’s history, it’s hard to say if it was incompetence or September blahs, but my guess is the former. They were terrible.

You wonder why they had three delay of game penalties. Why would they want to delay this disaster? Arrowhead’s a tough place to play, but don’t blame crowd noise. Thousands of Chiefs faithful left early for cover.

The run defense had an awful lapse, allowing tailback Jamaal Charles to spring through a gigantic hole for 56 yards to tie it before the first quarter ended. Special teams punt coverage suddenly collapsed. Heralded rookie tailback Ryan Mathews fumbled the ball away after a 15-yard gain that gave the Chiefs the ball on the San Diego 12. Chiefs scored.

Then, after more Chargers offensive ineptitude, K.C. rookie Dexter McCluster returned a Mike Scifres punt 94 yards without being touched for a touchdown. It was the longest punt return in Chiefs history, the longest ever against the Chargers. And this came after another rookie, Javier Arenas, had punt returns of 36 (Scifres saved a TD there) and 24 yards.

Really, now, they can’t miss Kassim Osgood that much, can they? I mean, he didn’t make every special teams tackle while he was here, did he? No, this was more than Osgood, and celebrated holdouts Marcus McNeill and Vincent Jackson not being around. This was bad ball.

That they would rally basically was inevitable. The Chiefs are too bad. But there wasn’t enough there. Rivers seemed to have trouble holding the wet ball all night. Didn’t it rain at North Carolina State? A few crucial passes were dropped.

And the game ended on the Chiefs’ 6-yard line, with 33 seconds remaining, when Rivers’ misfired a throw aimed at Malcom Floyd. They had a first-and-goal from the 4. K.C. was on its heels, ripe near the end. But Rivers never really came close on his three pass attempts there and an ill-advised handoff to Darren Sproles went nowhere.

Mathews was decent, rushing 19 times for 75 yards, but his fumble that eventually led to K.C.’s second score, was a killer. Fumbles are coach-killers, kid. LT rarely, rarely fumbled.

What else is there to say? It was predictable they wouldn’t play terribly well here and the weather slowed things down. But nobody could have expected the putrid special teams performance. They looked silly and played sillier against a weak division opponent.

As usual, we don’t know what to make of these guys. It’s September. They won’t give us a chance.